Seven must-know secrets to improve your health and quality of life – naturally!

In January this year, Nutrition & Healing presented ‘Nutritional Research Reviews,’ seven short summaries of research findings of potential general use. Since your feedback about that issue was overwhelmingly positive (and much appreciated), in this issue we’ll present three more, and add in some summaries of published ‘clinical observations,’ of practising physicians as well. While these ‘clinical observations’ are not controlled research, they can still be an invaluable and sometimes overlooked resource.

Clinical observations were at one time a much greater proportion of medical journal articles, and were relied upon by other practitioners for ideas about what to do for various health problems. Over time, as personalized medicine – interaction between individuals responsible for their own health care decisions and their doctors – slowly devolved into the institutional management of health care by government health agencies, clinical observations have been regarded as much less important than large-scale controlled trials, which fit much better into the new one-size-fits-all (disguised as ‘standard of care’) medical model.

Despite this, some doctors (including me) find clinical observations to be as useful – and sometimes more useful – than controlled research, particularly for many stubborn health problems. So along with research summaries, this issue will include useful clinical observations.

Exploring the link between organotherapy and cell therapy

Between approximately 1910 and approximately 1945, an entire specialty of medical practice known as organotherapy originated, flourished and then died, in the United States. Organotherapy used injections of carefully derived extracts of specific glands and organs to successfully treat a number of conditions. In some cases these treatments would still be the safest, best treatments, even in 2013. Literally thousands of scientific papers – many based on careful clinical observations by practising physicians, others on controlled research – were published about the health-improving effects of organotherapy (one of the last vestiges of which was outlawed by the medical authorities in the late 1970s). According to one source, there were over 100,000 articles about organotherapy treatment published in medical journals before 1939.

During roughly the same time, Dr. Paul Niehans in Switzerland pioneered what came to be known as cell therapy, which used foetal animal cells for the treatment of a number of different illnesses. Other European physicians soon followed his lead and many individuals were helped. Cell therapy was soon flourishing, mostly in Switzerland and Germany, and to a smaller degree in surrounding countries. Unlike organotherapy, the use of cell therapy has continued to this day, still mostly in Switzerland, where a few clinics specialise in the technique.

Organotherapy and cell therapy aren’t exactly the same, but there’s considerable overlap particularly in the early years of cell therapy when foetal animal cells were given by injection. You see, even in the early years of organotherapy, treatments were not whole organs or cells, but rather specific extracts from glands and organs.

There’s not enough space for the details here, but it would be fairly accurate to say, that… unless you pay to travel to Switzerland and then pay considerably more for a treatment that’s very close to the original version of cell therapy… cell therapy today and organotherapy of the mid-1900s are very similar with both being based on the use of very specific gland, organ and tissue extracts, and usually given by injection.

Why all the background? Because of the similarities those thousands of publications about organotherapy became very useful as guidelines for the use of cell therapy in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Although the best (and most expensive) forms of cell therapy available at present require a trip to Switzerland, Tahoma Clinic patients have experienced, and I’ve personally observed, many good results with the versions that are available in the US. The UK Stem Cell Foundation was established in 2005 to research the potential of stem cell treatments for currently incurable illnessses such as Parkinson’s and diabetes. For more information visit: www.ukscf.org

Let’s start with a quote describing the effects of spleen extract on hives and eczema:

“To state that hives will disappear in fifteen minutes, that the itching and oozing of an eczema will cease in half an hour, and that an eczematous lesion, regardless of its degree of lichenification [thickening, leathery look], will vanish in a few days, as the result of a hypodermic injection, seems preposterous, yet such has been the writer’s experience in a series of sixty-one cases.”1

That’s amazing, 61 cases of hives disappearing in 15 minutes (yes, 15!), and eczema vanishing within just a few days! While it’s true that ‘modern’ treatment (actually patented in the mid20th century) with pseudocortisol molecules such as prednisone and dexamethasone will suppress hives, and similar pseudo-cortisol preparations will suppress eczema in many cases, everyone – even the conventional doctors prescribing these treatments – knows that they work by suppressing the individual’s entire immune system. Use of these patent medicines for more than two to three weeks leaves the individual using them more susceptible to all sorts of infections.

Hives and eczema disappear!

By contrast, the use of spleen extract injections or spleen cell therapy doesn’t suppress the immune system at all. As the spleen and thymus gland regulate the immune system (even conventional medical schools teach that as fact, but do nothing with the information) it appears that’s exactly what spleen injections do for whatever the malfunction of the immune system may be that results in hives: they re-regulate that malfunction back to normal function, and the hives and eczema disappear.

Although the same spleen extract used to eliminate hives in the 61 individuals described above is no longer available, spleen (as well as thymus) cell therapy is available. In the last 20 years, all but one of dozens of individuals in the US suffering from chronic, recurrent hives has had complete disappearance when treated with spleen and thymus injections. (Only one individual had an apparent allergic reaction to the treatment, and stopped treatment.)

Psoriasis can be tough to eliminate. Cleaning up the diet, eliminating all refined and processed foods, and all alcohol (that can be tough for some) is often helpful. It’s well known that sun exposure (without potentially-dangerous sunscreens) can be very helpful and we’ve all probably heard of visiting the Dead Sea in Israel for especially tough cases. Taking a clue from that understanding, Dr. Michael Holick suggested that vitamin D3 creams might be helpful, and for many, they are.

Entirely natural prescription- only Psorizide Forte® also works for many. It contains both nickel and bromide. Nickel is an essential element in very small quantities; bromide is not an essential element, and must be offset with iodide, so it’s important you work with your doctor if using this one.

Doctor’s breakthrough cures psoriasis

But with all that we know about psoriasis, it’s been entirely forgotten that in 1927, a doctor using organotherapy for a young woman with ‘great patches of psoriasis’, made the following observations about the outcome in an article titled Psoriasis Treated with Hypodermic Injections of Thymus Solutions:

“In two weeks after I began the treatment I saw improvement, and this continued steadily until in six months this patient was practically well. In the meantime, several other patients [suffering from psoriasis] came along… the uniform improvement right up to the disappearance of the skin lesions has been marvelous. Only in one case… did we fail to obtain a complete cure.”2

He went on: “I persuaded [the supplier] to make up a supply… for clinical use in one of our large hospitals… and now the dermatologists in charge of the clinic are asking for more…”

As this report was just recently found and dusted off in the medical library by Dr. Ron Steriti, I have not yet been able to observe if it works as well in the second decade of the 21st century as it did almost 90 years ago, but humans with psoriasis are still humans with psoriasis, and thymus is still thymus, so I have every expectation that ‘injections of thymus’ will work as well as Dr. Ward has reported above.

Boost your immunities with thymus

All medical textbooks tell us that the thymus gland is most robust and active in childhood, and in adults often degenerates with time until there’s no observable active tissue left, but only dense fibrous tissue. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that very few – if any – children suffer from psoriasis?

As there’s very little else (except for spleen extract) that is known to improve or boost the immune system, and since there have not been any serious adverse effects reported from their use, it makes sense to try them in chronic problems in which the immune system appears to be malfunctioning, including – but not limited to – those mentioned by ‘WebMD’.

However, the potential for problems with any injectable material is more than it is with foods, botanicals, vitamins, minerals, homeopathy and other ‘do-it-yourself’ health care, so it’s always best to work with a practitioner skilled and knowledgeable in organotherapy/ cell therapy for these or other treatments in these specialties.

In 1973 – only four years after starting a naturally-oriented medical practice (which later became Tahoma Clinic) – a small book was published by a very prestigious paediatrician, Dr. Frank Oski. At the time Dr. Oski was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in the US and later he became Director of the Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

So why mention all the credentials? Because the title of Dr. Oski’s book is, Don’t Drink Your Milk. As he wrote at the time: “Being against cow milk is equated with being un-American.” But despite America’s obsession with milk he was absolutely correct when he wrote elsewhere: “Cow’s milk is for calves, mother’s milk is for humans.”

In this book, Dr. Oski tells us of the multiple health problems which cow’s milk causes for humans. For now, we’ll focus on just one: strep throat. Dr. Oski quotes Dr. Dan Baggett, an Alabama paediatrician who’d been in practice 17 years when he wrote this to Dr. Oski:

“Perhaps the most significant thing I have learned is that Group A beta-hemolytic streptococcus germ will not… establish an infection in a child kept on an absolutely no-milk-protein dietary regimen. I have been aware of this for the past two and a half years, and so far there have been no exceptions.”4

Go dairy-free to be strep-free

I’m sure that Dr. Baggett and Dr. Oski continued to observe this phenomenon for the rest of their medical careers. Why? Since learning this from them in 1977 – that’s 36 years ago – I have not seen a repeat strep throat in any child who stopped drinking cow’s milk and eating dairy products. Strep throat simply stops happening in those who stay dairy-free.

And that dairy sensitivity persists for a lifetime! No matter the age, from childhood to senior citizen, if there’s a personal history of even one strep throat, a blood test will be positive for antibodies to milk and dairy! Frequently, eliminating milk and dairy following a positive blood test will result in a reduction or elimination of symptoms and improvement of health, even if that individual’s last case of strep throat was decades ago! No kidding!

For anyone interested in all the health problems – including serious problems such as nephrosis (a type of kidney failure) rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and appendicitis (again, no kidding) as well as many more – which can be caused or aggravated by milk and dairy, many copies of Dr. Oski’s book are still available at www. usedbooksearch.co.uk/.

CLINICAL OBSERVATION #4: Reverse your osteoporosis naturally

A few months ago, a woman came in with a report from her latest bone density (DEXA) scan. It showed normal bone density, with no significant bone loss at all. She also had a chart showing all of her DEXA scans from the first one, when she was found to be in the early stages of osteoporosis. Each year she’d had a steady improvement. Yet she’d taken no patent medicines at all, and had decided not to use bio-identical hormone therapy (BHRT).

A few weeks ago, another woman came in with a report from her third DEXA scan. It showed a significant improvement from her second one, which in turn was significantly better than her first one. She also used no patent medicines and although she had been using BHRT it wasn’t the main thing that did the job, as very few – if any – women using BHRT alone have improvements this impressive.

So what have these and many other women who achieved similar results done? They all used nature’s tools, diet, exercise, and specific nutrients, which is of course how we all grew our bones to begin with. No patent medicines needed!

Three steps to reversing bone loss

They all ate a variety of unprocessed, unrefined wholefoods. They made sure to get some regular exercise of their own choosing. And they took the following nutrients daily: calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin K1, and vitamin K2 (MK7) and on the same day but at a different time zinc, selenium, copper, manganese, molybdenum, boron, silicon and strontium. All of these nutrients have been found important in bone formation.

While there’s more calcium than any other mineral in bone, and all the other minerals are important, too, as Nutrition & Healing readers know, strontium is the catalyst that helps make all those other nutrients regrow bone much faster than without strontium. This is not at all a new research finding. It’s long been known that normal bone is continually rebuilt by bone cells called osteoblasts and continually broken down by cells called osteoclasts, another of thousands of examples of balance in nature.

In 1985, Dr. Pierre Marie observed that strontium speeds up the action of the bone-building osteoblasts and slows the action of the bone-destroying osteoclasts, with a net positive result for bones. (By contrast, one of the principal types of patent medicines ‘works’ by poisoning the osteoclasts so they can’t function at all, totally destroying nature’s balance and leading to multiple adverse effects.)

A denser mineral than calcium, part of the increase in bone density seen on scans is due to the strontium. Various estimates are that it may be up to 40 per cent of that improvement. But experiment after experiment has found that bone fractures decline dramatically, often to zero, in women using strontium in combination with other minerals and vitamins. Other experiments show that strontium-containing bone crystals are normal in size and shape, and overall bone strength and flexibility is also normal.

As space is limited in any newsletter, for further details and explanations about completely reversing osteoporosis, please see the book, Your Bones by Lara Pizzorno (who reversed her own bone loss) and me. It’s available through online sources.

Over 90 per cent of the women I have worked with who were suffering from bone loss have continued to have significant improvements each year, as shown by DEXA scans, while taking these supplements. They are called Osteomins AM (two capsules in the morning) and Osteomins PM (four capsules at lunch and four capsules at dinner, or four at dinner and four at bedtime). The calcium, magnesium and strontium are all prepared in the most bioavailable form for humans, and absorb better than any other form. Since many women with osteoporosis also have difficulty with absorbing nutrients, usually because of hypochlorhydria (low stomach acid) this is particularly important.

As several women have observed, it’s worth swallowing all those Osteomins AM and Osteomins PM pills since they work so well!

RESEARCH REPORT #1 Berberine helps protect against Alzheimer’s

Let’s switch from reports of useful clinical observations to research reports. Here’s another one concerning the extract berberine, found in large quantities in goldenseal, Oregon grape, and many other traditional botanicals. Berberine has been found to be helpful for a number of conditions including type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and lipid control, to mention only a few.

This research was done in mice, not men (or women), but like the mice in the ‘niacinamide reverses Alzheimer’s’ research at the University of California Irvine, these mice had been genetically manipulated to be ‘transgenic’ (not transgendered!) so that their DNA contained human genes predisposing to Alzheimer’s disease. (For the scientifically inclined, ‘TgCRND8 mice express human APP695 with the Swedish (K670N/M671L) and Indiana (V717F) mutations… heterozygous with respect to the transgene.’ OK, enough of that for now.)

Berberine is bursting with brain benefits

Compared with non-transgenic mice, this type of transgenic mice usually develop cognitive deficits and learning deficits at an early (for a mouse) age, as well as accumulating abnormally high levels of β-amyloid and tau protein, hallmarks of human Alzheimer’s disease. According to these researchers, berberine given to the transgenic mice from two to six months of age ‘significantly ameliorated learning deficits’, significantly improved memory retention, reduced pathology caused by β-amyloid as well as reduced the amount of β-amyloid itself. Berberine had many other brain-beneficial effects as well.5

It’s well established now that berberine significantly lowers insulin resistance and improves both pre-diabetes (type 2) and type 2 diabetes itself. It’s also well known that individuals with insulin resistance, pre-diabetes (type 2), and type 2 diabetes have a significantly higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease. So even though these encouraging preliminary results are from transgenic mice and these anti-Alzheimer’s results have not yet been proven in humans, if you or a family member have type 2 diabetes or any of the conditions which precede it, it just makes sense to make berberine part of your programme.

It could help your blood sugar and insulin resistance control, lower your cholesterol and triglycerides if they are high, and (very likely) reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s dementia, all at the same time.

RESEARCH REPORT #2 Getting to the bottom of GABA and auto-immune disease

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an amino acid that doesn’t build into proteins, is the major ‘inhibitory neurotransmitter’ in human and animal brains and the rest of the nervous system. It’s been sold as a supplement in natural health food stores for decades and many of those who use it report it has a calming effect.

Patent medicine companies (sometimes called pharmaceutical or drug companies) have literally generated vast sums of capital by creating (with medical authorities then ‘approving’) unnatural – but patentable – versions of GABA such as Neurontin® (also called Gabapentin) and Lyrica® (Pregabalin) sales of which are reported to have been more than $3 billion in 2010.6

Simple supplement douses inflammation

Relatively recent research has found that GABA has much the same ‘calming’ role in the immune system as it’s known to have in the nervous system, inhibiting and calming the inflammation caused by an overreacting immune system. In a 2013 article summarising very recent research, the authors noted that GABA has been found to inhibit inflammation stimulated by the auto-immune reactions involved in rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes (also an autoimmune disease).

None of the research reviewed involved studies involving humans with auto-immune disease, so it can’t be said exactly what GABA will do for human auto-immune disease and what quantities will be most useful. But GABA has been found to have very few adverse effects, so if after reading this and the relatively exciting results reported below, if you have an auto-immune condition that isn’t under good-to-excellent control, you might consider making an appointment with a doctor skilled and knowledgeable in nutritional and natural medicine for a GABA consultation.

RESEARCH REPORT #3 GABA’s protective effects against type 1 diabetes

The title of this next research report – GABA exerts protective and regenerative effects on islet beta cells and reverses diabetes7 – should catch the attention of any doctor treating individuals who’ve recently developed type 1 diabetes, and of course those individuals themselves.

Yes, this was mouse research, but the findings are worth our paying attention. As this summary (abstract) of the article attests to: “… our in vivo [in living mice] findings show that GABA therapy preserves β-cell mass and prevents the development of T1D [type 1 diabetes]. Remarkably, in severely diabetic mice, GABA restores β-cell mass and reverses the disease.” The entire article includes discussion about the many mechanisms of action of GABA in reversing type 1 diabetes. And the doses used in these mouse experiments were not very large.

No human studies have been reported yet, but – as noted above – GABA has very few adverse effects. If you have type 1 diabetes, particularly in early stages, it’s worth consulting with a doctor skilled and knowledgeable in natural and nutritional medicine to see if GABA will help you. Of course, any illness is easiest to reverse in its early stages, and impossible to reverse if too much damage has been done, so the sooner the better.

For those interested in trying to reverse their type 1 diabetes, I have personally worked with individuals who have had laboratory-verified improvements in β-cell function, as shown by significant improvement in insulin secretion, with the use of niacinamide and the botanical Gymnema sylvestre. Niacinamide has been found to induce pancreatic islet cell stem cells to transform into actual islet cells,8 and Gymnema blocks the effects of a toxin – streptozotocin – known to induce type 1 diabetes.9

Wishing you the best of health,

Dr. Jonathan V. Wright
Editor
Nutrition & Healing

Volume 7, Issue 10 – October 2013

Full references and citations for this article are available in the downloadable PDF version of the monthly Nutrition and Healing issue in which this article appears.

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